I started as a songwriter and wanted to be like Leonard Cohen. I've always seen my stories as enlarged songs.

Even at the time, I realised this couldn't be right, that this interpretation didn't fit with the rest of the lyrics. But that wasn't an issue with me. The song was about what I said, and I used to listen to it again and again, on my own, whenever I got the chance.

As a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened.

Love isn't about when you first meet. It's about the many, many years you spend together, when you're trying to keep that flame burning.

The Booker triumph of Graham Swift's moving, effortlessly profound Last Orders is a vindication of the quiet, much-misunderstood path this fine writer chose to take after the brilliance of Waterland more than ten years ago.

What do you think dignity's all about?' The directness of the inquiry did, I admit, take me rather by surprise. 'It's rather a hard thing to explain in a few words, sir,' I said. 'But I suspect it comes down to not removing one's clothing in public.

There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.